a demonic is formula one grand prix while activists try to make their voices heard against all the olds. venezuela's election council agrees to partially audit presidential vote results just hours before nicolas maduro is sworn in and. worried about the kids my kids their friends live in those apartments those houses we don't know about them. as the search for survivors continues after the deadly explosion at a fertilizer plant in texas concerns grow over public safety violations and america's crumbling industrial infrastructure.

i welcome you watching r.t. live from moscow. clashes have erupted in bahrain ahead of sunday's formula one grand prix police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in isolated areas across the country earlier two teenagers were sentenced to ten years in prison and were allegedly tortured before they confessed to attacking police during anti government riots human rights watch says mass police officers detained twenty opposition activists last week in towns need the f one circuit without warrant the government denies it's discriminating against its own people but anti regime protesters say the state is on the path to becoming a sing me to take the ship already in his home to the us is fifth fleet and is wracked by almost daily violence where even doctors are arrested for helping injured protesters let's take a quick look at some of the figures put out by amnesty international.

since the since twenty eleven we can see there are a thousand people have been arrested for taking part in protests twenty twelve seventy two people have been killed in clashes with police since february twenty leaven and eighty children under the age of eighteen are being held in adult prisons for participating in protests. the bahraini government is desperate to improve its own image he recently spent over thirty two million dollars on public relations firms and he's part impossible to talk of bahrain's protest movement without mentioning nobody with a job who is the nation's leading human rights defender his work as an activist cost him a lengthy prison sentence last year it is a pace in in the legal gatherings that was later reduced but the verdict dream intense criticism both from bahrain's western allies as well as many human rights

groups and bill but it jams been an outspoken supporter of the demonstrations calling on the country's ruling morning key to stop widespread abuse and start reforms to bring the bahraini protest movement to the media forefront the activists met with the world's top whistleblower june the sun she were interviewed for a job just before he was arrested artie's party boyko reports on their encounter. not long before his imprisonment bahrain's most famous human rights campaigner was in london talking to another prominent activist and whistleblower julian a sandwich so we came here to london's ecuadorian embassy which the wiki leaks founder has been calling home for some ten months now in order to have a chat about the man at the forefront of bahrain's pro-democracy struggle i began by asking afghans why he was saying keen to invite me over job for an interview on his exclusive r.t. show braid has one hundred thousand people. it has one hundred fifty

thousand twitter followers prize predominantly all the population of earth. sincere arrests of a number of other activists in the brain screen. but never read jail. time to present grazing rights was the most prominent voice for the brain spring speaking to julian assange to be over job was unequivocal about his determination to fight for democracy in bahrain if you have a goal and if you believed in did just still fuel. you wouldn't you want to overcome those difficulties and you know that. it changes that you are fighting for it's been good for hundreds it's not an easy thing to change. those changes you have to be willing to pay. that price might be your life for to be over

a job that price has become is freedom three months off to interview was that he was sentenced to three years behind bars but according to a staunch keeping him in prison on the current charges is going to be increasingly difficult for the bahraini government. cartoonish form of despotism where he's been sentenced to three years imprisonment for a number of tweets relation to your personal stories to the prime minister. as well as organizing protests he even when he was imprisoned briefly released he did not resign he took the same standard criticizing us or it's hard for the people with that much courage to come. you can't be cowed so i think it's long term prospects accord good amnesty international have labeled him a prisoner of conscience but unless the international community wakes up to abuses in bahrain there's little hope that maybe over jobs going to be tasting freedom any

time soon. see london's ecuadorian embassy. saw use of work closely with the bureau the job when he headed the bahrain center for human rights he says that even though being a not to be seen bahrain is no job of jobs followers are ready to take up. and now he's in jail and this to go get both of you but i still wish you'd behave and sending messages to the one hundred people to be proud of and following him and they cannot dish out this side because they'll be able to buy it us thinking there are many here but i'm going to give even if they were at this meeting but i think it's kind of them but i think give us would come out it was i know we have six or. six activists behind but one of them getting so i think of what i mean by becoming a good man i think of this in the end by a mistook an easy to go take your you need to get their shit but if you like

beheaded i'm going to be. even two years ago for example the second he had actually been your you don't have to go about the human rights situation in bahrain and then he was it us that don't you have to do i did good because it could take you to death body. and we will be closely following the f one race in the turbulent gulf kingdom in the coming days in the meantime you can always check out our website at r.t. telecom to find out more about an appeal to jab on the history of the bahraini protest movement. more heat fueling flames of the worst doctors to hold positions gridlocked know the lies they should receive over the right to be seen to be credible. when their build roads are basically a formula for controversy burning rubber on the streets of bahrain. like sheep weekend. venezuela is electoral body has announced an order to the remaining votes just hours before the swearing in of

the country's president elect nicolas maduro is now a victory over an opposition rival honeycutt has split the country right down the middle sparking large scale demonstrations. reports now from caracas first of all ready fifty four percent of the votes have been audited the day after the election so this is just completing it making it one hundred percent audit and the electoral committee had come out saying that it agreed to that it offered that to the opposition and this is cowboy who had been staunchly calling for first of all a vote recount and an audit and come out and give it a press conference and said he accepts this offer also so he says they want to be part of the process essentially supervising this process but let's make a differentiation with the manual vote counting you know counting the votes again one by one now this supreme court justice the chief had already come out and said that this was not possible and said that anyone with thought this was possible had been deceived because the a system electoral system here is fully automated therefore a manual vote counting would not be possible as far as the inauguration ceremony is

concerned it's still going on everything scheduled and will go on as planned security has been stepped up across the city in hotels where dignitaries are are going to be staying with some countries about more than a dozen have already said that they will be sending a high level delegation so that still is going ahead but also there will be a military parade during the day after the announcement of the elections you know that emotions have been running high so we did see street protests they did get quite violent because. it said that about seven people had died in those post election tensions but people are still very hyped up about you all to the election but so far everything that has been planned for the nineteenth of april here in venezuela seems to be going ahead a spot of the moderation from going to smuggle. the fates of dozens of people is still unknown in texas where a search and rescue mission continues for victims of a violent explosion that ripped apart the time of west up to fifteen people are believed to have died and more than one hundred sixty people injured when

a fertilizer plant exploded on wednesday night off season i'm on galindo reports from the scene. several police departments from around texas cordoned off a large area around the fertilizer plant which exploded last night at about seven thirty local time now i just came back from one of the local hospitals which admittedly nearly one hundred people who were injured in the explosion last night overall we know that more than one hundred sixty people were hurt in the blast right now there have been come for unpaid teles however we haven't gotten a new casualty count recently given the fact that this is still a search and rescue mission we do speak to one woman earlier who was slightly wounded during the explosion she lived in the vicinity of the blast her family was ok but so many of her friends she did not know the whereabouts swayed about the kids my kids their friends live in those apartments those houses we don't know

about them we don't know about some of the father or friends if so what happened during school hours i mean it's still bad but if the kids were in school it was really close by so many first responders digging through the rubble this morning still hoping to find survivors in a neighborhood which has been described as a war zone i can tell you i was there i walked through the blast area i searched some houses earlier tonight massive just like iraq just like the murray building in oklahoma city same town and exploded so you can imagine what kind of damage we're looking out there. i know there was at least seventy five to fifty fifty to seventy five houses damaged there's a partner complex that has about fifty units in it that was completely. just skeleton standing investigation is still underway for the root cause meanwhile the

police and firefighters are still searching the rubble near the fertilizer plant. well the blast has caused many to question whether by seat industrial safety regulations are being ignored in the states the plant reported that it had only around twenty four kilograms of an hydrous ammonia far less than twenty tons believed have been ignited in the report stated there were no fire or explosive risks the worst possible scenario it envisaged was a ten minute release of a minute gas but with and any casualties but this blast shook hands around eighty kilometers away resulting in a rising number of injuries and deaths professor dr jeffrey pattison from the school of medicine wisconsin university believes that that federal regulation may be to blame for the tragedy there's been this montreaux that we have to deregulate we have to take away regulations so business from thrive and obviously we see examples like this or fukushima for example where when we do that we suffer the

consequences in the end and so i think and we're seeing it with the environmental protection agency today where they are promulgating new regulations if there is a mother who she lurchers that will allow all of the cleanup to be in much more lax than it currently is and not force people to be moved out of the area because of radiation damage so there's this tremendous move. to to deregulate things to take away the powers of the e.p.a. and other regulatory agencies and i think that's a we're seeing now that that's a very dangerous precedent. the blast which devastated a local nursing home and the school made many question the country's most two billion dollar investment priorities auntie's marine important reports it's no secret that the crumbling infrastructure in the u.s. is considered one of the largest dangers to national security over the past four

years if not more of the american society for civil engineers has given the greed d. plus to america's infrastructure that is an indication underscores how how most of the bridges the tunnels the airports the levees that list goes on and on are so decrepit and the problem is is that washington is not investing its resources into rebuilding america's infrastructure while over the past ten plus years america has invested hundreds of billions of dollars into surveillance systems into the department of homeland security into c.c.t.v. cameras and systems of facial recognition they do that under the auspices of keeping american safe they have neglected to invest the money that is necessary to build up america's infrastructure and that infrastructure extends to the amount of

inspectors that are available to go into facilities such as the fertilizer facility that exploded in texas in west texas and examine it and to make sure the proper repairs are taking place there's not enough funding that seeing allocated to to have the proper means for the infrastructure of the u.s. be it rebuild it or be it you know making sure that it's up to par look it could be texas that we're talking about at this moment or last month we were talking about the oil spill in arkansas or last year we're talking about new york and new jersey in the tri state area and going dark because of hurricane sandy or the year before that when we're talking about other failures of infrastructure being bridges collapsing or pipes exploding this is a situation that's considered the biggest danger to national security and it's a danger it's a situation that most environmentalist and any errors say that officials in washington are ignoring. shocking amateur video footage and witness accounts of the

blast have flooded the internet. thank you ok i think. he's to head to our web site r t dot com to get the latest updates and comprehensive analysis of this developing story for the new video struggling to argue cheap china. coming up in the program highway tera choi a dispute between kurds and iraq's central government is further fueled by vast oil reserves in the country's north well the details coming up short.

the current international airport in the very heart of moscow.

welcome back egypt's president morsi is in russia at the moment to talk business with vladimir putin auntie's in the i reports from the city of sochi this is the first visit by an elected dejection president to russia and among issues such as bilateral cooperation in the sphere of investment as well as tourism because egypt remains one of the prime location for russian holidaymakers to visit while on vacation first there are other issues which will be discussed by president putin and president morsi in sort of this other resorts among those items well before speaking the mediation of peace in the middle east both countries are extremely interested in maintaining a stability and a political in the region and that unfortunately has not been the case as a place of course egypt itself has been under fire for the last week and probably due to the violence which has been happening in the country surrounding coptic

christians and that has been one of the primary issues which mohamed morsi has promised to address while in his position as the leader of egypt gyptian the government is obviously seems to be putting a lot of effort into presenting its image as a stable and determined entity to the world which we're seeing right now in sochi. in other news a police officer at the massachusetts institute of technology has been shot and killed on campus by an unknown gunman one arrest has been made following the shooting reports from nearby watertown say witnesses heard gunfire and explosions f.b.i. agents and members of the national guard are involved in a massive ongoing police operation and we'll bring you more on this developing story as we get it. the lower house of the u.s. congress has passed a controversial bill that many say puts did put digital freedoms under fire the cyber intelligence sharing protection act would allow private firms to share the

personal data of web users with u.s. government agencies one of the lawmakers who voted for that bill cited monday's deadly boston bombing as a pretext but the white house has hinted it may block the legislation which it feels doesn't address public concerns about the invasion of privacy r.t. american producer andrew blake is following the control. aides for the white house actually said that we will recommend the president veto this legislation aronsen for sharing of protection act it's come under a lot of criticism by its opponents because they say that it does more than what the authors say it does now the authors of cispa they say that this bill will lead to businesses private companies google facebook and many internet provider these companies will be encouraged to share information with the federal government that will be used to track down and monitor and curb cyber attacks aimed at the united states computers critics say that it puts too much of americans privacy at risk and

that the right safeguards aren't there so in turn people would be sacrificing their privacy for a little bit of security when the bill was introduced back in february i believe one of the areas for the second time representative or one of the authors of the bill he said you know we can't have another nine eleven we can't have another terrorist attack it but if we do we will pass any law that needs to happen sure enough to another congressman he actually got up and said well look what happened in boston these were bombs sure they weren't digital bombs but the next ones will be digital bombs so we need to come together for the sake of national security and do something and that's exactly why a lot of people have problems with this bill because the people who are touting it the people who are writing it are people that don't really understand these cyber security concerns and there's a lot of concern over who is coming up with this bill who is supporting it and what they actually know about cyber security. incident this morning saying that you know boston would be reason enough to pass a cyber security bill is laughable to many people a sectarian tension across iraq rises the kids moving. towards independence despite

strong objections from baghdad the country's northern region has become a scene of a volatile stalemate between two armies and the conflicts being further few by the massive oil deposits there which both sides wish to claim and exploit is that she kept enough. they call them those who face death gone once guerrilla rebels fighting saddam for an independent kurdistan now an officially sanctioned force in iraq's semi autonomous kurdish region the peshmerga and the iraqi troops are supposed to be on the same side after all they're citizens of one country but for more than a year now here in northern iraq the two armies have been pitted against each other their weapons locked and loaded these peshmerga soldiers are on alert twenty four hours a day they're guarding the kurdish front line of the so-called disputed territory now no iraq the soldiers are allowed beyond this point if either army advances if

there's even a single misfire it could spark a new war. it's a war the kashmir gong is ready for. we have enough forces in place and enough firepower for the peshmerga to defend against any surprises if for attacks of course we will retaliate. at the heart of the disputed territory is secure coop which both baghdad and the kurds say belongs to them all the program code group. it's like a small version of iraq with sunni shia christians arabs and kurds it's this view that because. of course the other reason is kook's oil. the oil fires illustrate the main reason that this land is so hotly contested kirkuk a sitting on an estimated ten billion barrels of oil and is responsible for a large chunk of iraq's current output that's enough to sustain an independent

state should the kurds get their way and annex this disputed territory it's also enough to bankrupt iraq if the oil revenue is lost. that revenue makes up ninety five percent of iraq's annual budget of more than one hundred billion dollars and there's a lot more money at stake the international energy agency says iraq could export a staggering five trillion dollars worth of oil. well over the next two decades the kurds and the central government are supposed to share these profits but they haven't been able to sort out how. the oil line guys it's all iraqi people. are having to buy coals to sion but no no there is no real solve acceptable and they're standing between all iraqis on the revenue sharing this is the key problem. or oil has transformed kurdistan into a boom town and the capital of arbil construction projects dot the landscape there

are luxury malls and foreign investors are flocking here in the region looks and feels like a different country and for the kurds that may be the ultimate goal but for now this is one iraq divided into two. you have facial between. iraqi military and. couldn't stand it when you have a situation like this it causes tension and if something goes wrong it can lead to . actual fight between the two sides. blood for oil it's a scenario that no one in iraq wants to see but the army's remain in place each side carefully watching the other kurd versus arab iraqi versus iraqi lucie county r.t. reporting from the disputed territories in iraq. and up next r.t. interviews i leading israeli journalist on the world of intelligence.

i reckon cardiologist dr omar al claims that the war in iraq destroyed iraq's environment even worse than dropping the bomb on hiroshima did dr e.c. puts the data that the number of press cancer cases has grown in the country from fifteen to thirty times cases of congenital heart disease have become fifteen times more frequent case of leukemia have increased thirty fold the doctor puts the blame on the weapons used in the one thousand nine hundred one and two thousand and three invasions of iraq it which nato forces used white phosphorus depleted uranium rounds and other toxic gases and poisonous substances human rights watch and the world health organization have measured radiation levels in iraq and consider many places in iraq even some very far from the fighting to be contaminated naturally radiation is not racist and foreign soldiers in iraq are not immune usa today even

published research results that found that depleted uranium was indeed in the lungs and other organs of navy vets who filed for health compensation claims yet you know saddam hussein seemed like a pretty bad guy but there are always ways to get around the confines of a dictatorship but there is no way to escape from radiation it is truly the present so when the invasions of iraq are good for the iraqis well it doesn't seem to be doing too good for their physical health but that's just my opinion.

international airport in the very heart of moscow. with me i have you'll see moment one of israel's leading journalists and commentators on security and intelligence affairs he also coauthored the book spies against armageddon inside israel's secret wars mr mehlman thank you very much for joining us here on r.t.c. my pleasure thank you how involved are israeli spies inside iran iran is. the israeli government by these really diligent as a high priority it's a number one priority and therefore there is a lot of intelligence involved there and the door there together information but when you see israeli spies doesn't mean this is early that is israelis.

recruiting. and try to send its own spies is iran there are other means of collecting the information is israel behind the assassination of ukrainian scientists and also hacking into the radio and computer systems. well i i can't reveal sources so i would i would not i would not detail them but. it's our understanding that israel was behind it it's based on some. logic that that was a person identified with previous operations in other parts of the world it's part of really intelligence in the submarine for addition in some rare cases carry if necessary assassination attempts and some are there are bits of information which i can i don't wish to detail the western world try to use diplomacy to prevent north korea from acquiring nuclear power but it didn't help do you think

it's the same situation with iran well exactly this is the this is the point. iran wants nuclear weapons for various reasons. iran wants to be. to have a good morning in the region. nuclear weapons in the hands of a country that means nischelle bry scientific interest infrastructure technological development. but also it's it's a government for this survival of the e.g. why because we see the north korean example north korea has developed nuclear weapons and we assume they have nuclear weapons they even tried it with three test although they did not socks not succeed. because they were they know that if you have nuclear weapons. no one is messing up with you and this is the north korean.

president and the iranians know it and they want to repeat it so yes diplomacy has failed with north korea but diplomacy is also failing with iran in your opinion do you think israel is trying to maneuver the united states to attack iran i wouldn't use the world maneuvering israel wants america to attack iran as a last resort when if diplomacy fails and indeed failed so far even the sanctions are no where and at the end of the day iran would not cave in to the pressure and would assemble limbaugh in such a case israel prefers that america would do the job not only because it's more convenient but above all because america has the capabilities. to inflict a major blow on iran's nuclear sites while israel

capabilities are very very limited what do you think was going on behind the scenes during president obama's recent. up to israel who exactly was putting pressure on iran i would say that america simply or president obama in this case simply asked israel daunte do anything which would not be coordinated with us in other words don't take iran unless it is coordinated with guns don't surprise us could israel carry out an attack without a coordination i i don't believe that israel would take you run we wrote it in our book i have been writing it in my newspaper articles for the last five years when every here and there in the international media was saying this era is that crucially or next year is the crucial year i don't think israel will attack you run because the israeli capabilities are limited we can do it but the damage that we

can inflict upon you run and its nuclear site is is very limited and if let's say the big question is. if israel attacks iran what would be the damage and if the damage would slow down the run in nuclear program for one year or a year and a half and then they would rebuild it i don't think it's worth taking the risk and there is a great risk involved in such an attack what the people difference between an israeli strike on iran today as opposed to the strikes israel carried out on syria in two thousand and seven and on iraq in the eighty's or it's a it's a huge difference it's a difference that can be compared to day and night the attack on syria was by was by surprise there was one target. the distance was very

short you knew you did not need a lot of. weight to be carried in other words armaments to be care. israel was pretty confident that all our airplanes would return or safely while with iran it's the opposite the distances are longer or. israel does not have enough airplanes to carry an effective attack on iran iran would certainly retaliate and maybe would drag israel into a prolonged the war of attrition at the same time though when it's all carried out those strikes it was very quiet about the operations as you say they were surprised operations there's a lot of noise happening around a possible israeli strike on iran could that suggest that israelis are concerned that they might not in fact be able to carry out a successful strike but that's the argument if you want to carry an operation new dawn talk and you don't talk to the this is the level that is really the specially

netanyahu has been talking about it that's one reason why i don't think that israel would attack iran the former mossad leader madigan publicly said that he was against a strike on iran what does he favor instead they are saying that weak we should take more. or should being engaged in more covered operations to try to slow down iranian nuclear sites but above all israel has to be in concert to be coronated with the united states and the international community and israel should not take the lead in the runnion case so their argument is if israel at this present the guns argument is that if israel attacks the damage really really limited iran would rebuild its nuclear capacity and it

would use these really take as a justification for building nuclear the nuclear sites again the basically iran would say you see we need nuclear weapons because we were attacked. when you went to book did you have any censorship problems i asked because you you don't talk too much about kid on the mossad unit that was allegedly in charge of overseas operations why not well the book was written by. two of us by me i mean israeli journalist by in american journalist so my chapters were were censored i submitted them to the censorship. as any israelis are obliged to and since my co-author is an american they did not have doing these not under the jurisdiction of these rays as you but i think we have a chapter and we are very proud of the chapter talking about the key don't you need by you on it which is the spearhead of these really of the most in special

operations just the my side get away with some of the top of asians because of these israeli censorship laws no it has nothing to do with it. what do you mean get their way if this is is is conducting an operation abroad in their operation is revealed. outside israel then the censorship does not have its we cover that to cover their writing. international media can write about. the israeli operations as long as they are not they know about it these really media on the other subjected to that censorship i have been trying to fight the censorship by sometimes. are saying claiming that it's irrational it's not sensible. and it should be lifted we saw

some of that recently with the whole episode of prison x where the israeli journalists were having to rely on foreign reporting to quote on what was happening inside here do you think that person eight. port-a the for the shortcomings of the censorship laws in this country absolutely this is the example of prisoner x. the australian that committed suicide that was recruited by the mossad came to israel made aliyah work for the mossad and eventually was arrested for betraying the country and while awaiting his trial he committed suicide this is a good case of how this censorship is working and how the central ship has failed they try they end the courts it's not only the censorship we have also a system of court again. in this case in the case of reason the gag order prevailed. and because of the gag order we really journalists couldn't write about

the case although we knew about it i i tried to fight the gag order too badly i went to courts while the prison erik's was was still alive and i lost the case i was kicked out by the judges they said that the court order would remain intact but each shows the failure of the system because the only ones who did not have the information about prisoner x. where are these really public what does that mean does that mean that they could be other people locked away the that we don't know about because of this whole censorship well you see one of the damage is that prisoner x. affair code is to israel i think is the image of israel as a free democratic society what is the relationship like between the american intelligence agency and the israelis is there a trust in the relationships or is there a lot of mistrust we exchange information with we share assessments sometimes

we do joint operations in the field together with the americans but obviously the trust is not under a percent always the reason kind of a mistrust big. because you don't share even with your best friend everything you you you possess have is also enemies ever managed to plant agents within the israeli government their cities yes our history as a lot of cases in which foreign agents were planted in our most insane sense the thieves and i lose security institutions the intelligence community scientific is the toots and so on. but all in all i would say these are rare cases the the general trend is become that it is really very difficult society to to penetrate because it's the reason a great sense of better real soon in this country it's

a very almost genya society. if you want to spy on someone you you can spy but israel is more difficult to crack than other countries mr mehlman thank you very much for joining us here on r.t. thank you. ok going to.

probe no way things are going the republican texas be a whole lot better off in the state of texas texas has got its own life. has got all the hall and gas and everything it needs it's got all that and. everything in me you can survive by itself the rest of the united states which is to say the risk . and not just survive without reminders. striving for bread and an independent future. the republic of texas analyse. the news a secret laboratory to mccurry was able to build a new most sophisticated robot which all unfortunately doesn't give a dollar amount anything tunes mission to teach music creation why it should care about humans and world events this is why you should care only on the r.-g.

dot com. about international and world in the very heart of moscow. clegg. led.